I spent Saturday at the Zen Center of Pittsburgh for an all day silent mindfulness meditation retreat. For about a year and a half I have practiced mindfulness weekly with a group that meditates for a half hour and does a text study. Our training clinic has also supported the use of mindfulness techniques with our clients as it has been empirically supported for chronic pain, depression, anxiety and (I just learned on Saturday) ADHD. Not to say that traditional medication and psychosocial treatments are no longer indicated, but only to say that mindfulness helps, too.
Personally, I use mindfulness all the time. I was trained in a “slacker Zen” tradition where “sitting” can be done anywhere- on the bus, in a waiting room, or while running. Other traditions have a very specific way in which you are to physically sit and can be very formal about technique and ritual. I had one teacher who, trained in a more formal tradition, succumbed to nerve damage when she resisted moving her foot once it fell asleep. I’m extreme. I’m not that extreme. I like my “slacker” practice.
Although it is best to sit for a minimum of 20 minutes (it takes that long for you to reach a state), some practitioners recommend sitting 45 minutes a day (who has time for that?), but my practice “counts” as long as I do it… whether it’s 5 minutes or an hour.
You'd be silent for an entire day if it was at a beautiful place like this
Mindfulness hasn’t changed my life or made me a different person but it’s been a really valuable skill. A few examples:
- I practice in a tradition that focuses attention on a single point, typically the breath at the nostrils. But it can be a focus on anything- the breath in the belly, the sensation at the top of your head (or any other part of the body), or, in my case, the sensation of your foot striking the ground (if not running and really practicing, the sensation of a specific part of my foot as it strikes the ground). During hard races or ultras I often count my footsteps from one to four (not five because they it becomes automatic- we count to five all the time) and back again, focusing my attention on the movement of my feet, not my pain or how much further I need to go.
- Meditation can be useful because it helps you become more aware of arousal states meaning that you can intervene before (for example) your anxiety becomes impairing; over time regular meditation can even reduce your baseline arousal. When I start to become stressed over (for example) a school project, to the point where I’m not being productive but only spinning my wheels, taking even 5 minutes to stop to focus on my breathing, brings me to a point where I can once again be a functional human being.
- Through meditation I’ve learned that all states are temporary. Pain = temporary (HUGE for ultra running). Pleasure = temporary (sucks that it’s temporary, but if that means pain is temporary, too, I’ll take it). There’s something to be said for knowing that states are fleeting and being able to stay present in the moment.
Ideas 2 and 3 came together in a big way for me this summer. One day after a run I was sitting on the couch when it felt like my heart stopped. Then it started racing to such an extent that I put on the heart rate monitor from my Garmin because something seemed wrong- my heart was beating 250 beats per minute at rest. I knew this was bad, but instead of panicking, I stayed calm and went to my neighbor who was a doctor. He didn’t take me seriously at first because I was so calm, but once he listened to my heart he sent me to the ER. When I got to the ER the doctors and nurses kept commenting on how calm I was. I knew I had two options:
- I could freak out (I’d leave that to everyone else)
- I could be mindful and focus on my breath (I do this when I’m bored and don’t have anything to do anyway).
This was fine and dandy until they had to give me IV meds to get my heart back to a normal rhythm. The doc gave me the following warning (I couldn’t make this up): “It’s going to feel like you’re going to die, then you’re going to wish that you did die.” Awesome. They gave me the med and immediately it felt like someone was inside my heart trying to fight their way out with lots of sharp pointy things. I focused on my breath. I’m not sure how long the effects of the drug lasted- a minute maybe?- but I just focused on my breathing, and the pain passed. The docs and nurses were shocked. Not to imply that the pain wasn’t there, but I didn’t need to focus on it and I knew it would pass. Again, I’m not saying that mindfulness can obviate physical pain, but if it lessens it, isn’t that a skill worth cultivating? Three women in my meditation group were able to give birth without meds by using their mindfulness skills.
Just as running trains my body, I believe that mindfulness trains my mind and my ability to concentrate and that they complement each other to help me become as healthy and balanced as I can be. My teacher uses the analogy of the mind being a bottle with muddy water: with mindfulness we allow the sediment to settle so that we can see things with clarity.
Some references if you want to learn more about mindfulness (and feel free to ask questions!):
- Mindfulness inductions from UCLA
- A meditation timer that I like if you chose not to use an induction. The bell sounds like my teachers bowl, you can set it for any time and it gives you time to get settled after you set it.
- A great video of a talk that Jon Kabat-Zinn, a mindfulnes guru, gave to Google. It's a little long, but it's a great primer and he walks you through a brief induction, trouble-shooting at the end.
- A NY Times article on the brain changes that occur with meditation practice and how it may be related to happiness.
- A TED talk (I love TED talks!) on how a certain type of mindfulness can be associated with hapiness and the underlying neurobiology.
In the spirit of loving-kindness meditation (where you practice cultivating compassion for yourself and others): may you be well and happy.
I like this article. It interesting to realize that some of the things you mention as meditation practice are things that seem to occur naturally when you are running; especially long distances, and trying to filter out the pain.
In my line of work, I've seen the heart rate problem your describing and witnessed the treatment with the medicine. I have to say that looking at it from the outside and watching the EKG as the meds are administered, it's a pretty cool thing. However, reading about it from your perspective, I am sorry to hear it is something you had to deal with as a patient. Most people going thru the episode are very anxious and difficult to calm. I am glad and impressed you were able to use your meditation practice to get thru it.